1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a package for an integrated circuit, means for its mounting onto a printed circuit board and a method for its fabrication.
2. The Prior Art
The areal component density advantage gained by the use of integrated circuits is lost to some extent by the areal inefficiency of current packaging techniques, where the integrated circuit, itself occupies only a small fraction of the package area, the rest being used for metal parts for connecting the circuit to the outside world. Dense packages, such as the flatpack, overcome this disadvantage at the cost of requiring to be soldered onto circuit boards making replacement difficult and laborious. It is therefore desirable to provide an integrated circuit package of high areal efficiency which does not require to be soldered to a board. It is also desirable to provide area-effective means of mounting such a package and a method for its automatic fabrication.